Sigma Squad: Outskirts
by TheLooneyBin
Summary: This is the first story in a series of stories I'll be writing about the adventures of Sigma Squad and the Chief. Please review, it helps me as a writer make you happier. Now, on to the actual summary. After the events in Halo 4 Chief has been reassigned, now without his A.I. friend Cortana, to work with three other SPARTANs, and three new A.I. characters. Together, they make Sigma
1. Outskirts

The wind howled through the window. A girl was there, huddled in the corner waiting for the storm to pass.

 ** _boom_**

Another strike of lightning, another crash of thunder. Or artillery. The sound blended together after an hour in this torrent.

I came up to the girl, the floodlights on my helmet flooding the room with light instead of the water that had already snuck itself into the building. I slowly knelt down next to her, snapping my rifle onto the magnetic holster on my back.

"Hello there, are you okay?" I asked, though the very deep tone of my voice through my visor did nothing to soothe the scared girl.

I wish Grace was here, she was good with things like this. I stood and walked a few steps away, placing my finger to the button on the side of my helmet to turn on my radio.

"Ken, Grace. I have a survivor over in Echo section, I need one of you two to come over here to comfort her. Not exactly my strong point." I said into my visor. I waited for a response.

"Yeah Chief, I'm on the way." Coming from an exhausted Ken.

I leaned against the wall nearest me and knocked my head back against the sheet-rock. I sighed. It had been forever since I had actually been back to base. I had been just outside the walls for days scrounging the outskirts for survivors. I looked down at the girl in the corner, hoping Ken would just hurry up. To pass the time I studied my armor, looking for flaws in design. Satisfied that my drab green armor was almost pristine, Ken walked in.

"Hey Chief, what's the problem?" Ken asked, the local squad medic.

I nodded towards the girl in the corner in which Ken walked to.

"hey, it's alright. My name is Ken. What's your name?" he asked, the girl slightly peaking up.

"My name is Rachel." Said the small girl.

I drowned out most of the conversation and floated around in my thoughts, occasionally hearing a word or two.

My name was John, though most knew me as Chief, Master Chief or 117. I had saved the world three times and lost my A. I. and best friend, Cortana in one of those missions. Now, since then I've been assigned to work with Sigma Squad for how much longer I didn't know. It was strange trying to get accustomed to actually working with other Spartans on a regular basis. I was more of a "I work alone" kind of guy.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ken stand up and let the girl up onto his back. He motioned to the door signaling it was time to go. The small little girl shied away from my visor as I walked to the door, rifle raised. The covenant had struck this planet with such a force, and with little to no resistance from this planet's minuscule military power, the planet was in all but ruins of what it used to be.

Sweeping the area outside with the muzzle of my rifle I motioned Ken to move on. Grace, the squad's engineer, was waiting outside. She pushed off of the wall she was leaning against and hoisted her rifle up onto her shoulder.

"Well?" She asked expectantly, eying the girl clamped to Ken's back.

"Only survivor we've found, head back to base." I said, pointing off to the west.

She only nodded and began to march off, followed by Ken, and then me. The other member of our squad and the only well versed demolitions specialist, Luke, was already on the way to the base. He would meet us there soon. The desolate and ruined cityscape before us was humbling to say the least, making even me a little bit uncomfortable if not more anxious about this mission altogether. I learned all too painfully that a slight mistake could cost you your life… or someone else's.

I didn't know why but I had a pressing feeling on my shoulders. It was strange, I got that feeling usually when I thought enemies were around, but the covenant hadn't been seen on this planet since they terrorized it a month or so ago. The scars hadn't even begun to form upon the planet's surface yet. Still I had that dreaded feeling weighing me down. It was just a subconscious little voice telling me what should be done, could be done, or has been done. A voice that once was the voice of an old friend, now replaced by my own.

 ** _crack_**

The unmistakable report from a rifle was heard through the crash of the rain as a purple and green stream of plasma struck the ground by Grace's feet.

"Get Down!" Was the only thing I remember before hearing the battle erupt around us. it was no longer a single rifle piercing through this world's cold atmosphere, but several cutting through the already piercing frosty air. What happened next almost was completely out of instincts that had programmed into me not by the UNSC, or the Spartan program. But by myself.

As Ken dove to get behind a huge slab of concrete from one of the destroyed buildings, the small girl, Rachel, slipped from his back, sending her sprawling onto the ground in the middle of the rain soaked street, and in the same breath, the crossfire. I sprung towards her with inhuman speed and slid on my side, scrambling to place myself in front of the screaming girl. I was hunched over her already kneeling form, the water droplets on my visor giving me a slightly distorted look at her, taking several shots of plasma, needler crystals, and any other types of projectiles they could send my way. With my shields crackling, I grimaced and wrapped the girl up in my arms and brought her tightly to my chest, standing slowly, keeping my back to the onslaught of covenant fire. I dove towards the slab ken was behind and rolled onto my back, kicking up gravel as I landed behind the panel. I layed her down, pushing her behind Ken and snapping my rifle up with him and Grace to combat the enemy forces.

10 spent magazines and half an hour later the final covenant rifle ceased firing as it's user was flung from the top story of a building as a bullet pierced it's leg. I looked back at the girl, who in a most surprising gesture, put two fingers up to her face. A Spartan smile. I returned the gesture and she actually smiled this time.

"Since when were the covies here?" asked Grace, clearly frustrated with the situation.

"I don't know but they set up an ambush for us. That definitely can't be good" replied ken, nervous of how they'd known that they would come through that path.

"Right now, we get back to base. Understood?" I asked.

All I got were two nervous nods and another smile from Rachel.


	2. Origins

She was drifting away, but she wasn't being taken. She was leaving. She was leaving me here in the void of space without that calming voice to keep me company. She was leaving me here to be picked up by a pelican sometime later on, without a trace of her. But I didn't care about how she was leaving. I cared about why, why she would risk her own body and mind to save me. I was no one important, no one special. Just another SPARTAN. I was just doing my job. And it was my job to take care of her…

I could see her face now, even as I floated here unaware of anything else's presence near me. They thought I was unconscious when they picked me up. I was far from it. I was thinking, thinking about the times I'd shared with her, the missions we'd faced, the things we'd done. All of it we did together. Now as I reached out to touch her face she wisped away from my hand, swirling around my fingers. Spilling over the edges. Right through my fingertips again. I could have saved her. I know I could have. Somewhere deep inside I feel it. I try to tell myself nothing more could have been done but I can't brush the feeling that if maybe I'd just been a little, more.

I could hear her voice, taunting me, asking why I didn't save her. Why I was so useless. Why I couldn't be the man everyone wished I was, the man I wished I was. I knew the Cortana that I had known would never say such things. I screamed at the voices in my head. Roared at the sadness they brought, the emotion that I had been trained not to feel, but so yet desired. But not like this. Never like this.

I snapped awake, still yelling with the ferocity that I had in battle, sweating, though I was really freezing on the ship. The door to my cabin flew open and there stood Thomas Lasky, magnum in hand.

Lasky lowered the magnum to his side, sighing, asked, "Nightmares huh Chief?"

I didn't feel the need to answer.

The Captain ran his hand over his face, looking down at me. He walked in and straddled the desk's chair as he sat down, facing me.

"I know how you feel." He said with a small smile and a throaty chuckle.

I threw my feet off the side of the much too small bed and clasped my hands in thought. I finally spoke.

"I feel like it's my fault." I didn't tell him what I thought was my fault but he already knew, knew me better than any other person alive. Other than Dr. Halsey of course.

Lasky sighed and rubbed his face once more looking at me with a solemn look of knowing. But how could he know, who could he have lost...A quick glance back into my memories gave me the answer. When I was 15, I went on a mission, a mission to stop an unknown force from completely tearing Corbulo Military Academy to pieces. Lasky was one of the only three I had known had made it out of there. Alive anyways. There was a girl, Chyler, Chyler Silva. Lasky's best friend. She unluckily wasn't one of the three that made it out. I hadn't noticed at the time but lasky must have felt responsible. Chyler was his Cortana, a calming voice in the most violent times, a supporter, and more importantly a friend when no one else was. He knew.

"It's not your fault, and you'll see that eventually. Trust me, I know." Thomas stated with a smile, breaking me from my thoughts.

I gave a curt nod in response, not really believing him but wishing that I did.

"I have something to tell you Chief, and you aren't gonna like it." He said giving a deep chuckle.

I straightened my back, looking at him, the bed creaking under my weight.

"You've been assigned to work as the leader of a squad of three other Spartans, Spartan IVs. Rookie Spartan IVs at that. They need a lot of work and we think you could be an avid leader to take command of the small Fireteam."

I gave a low grunt in response. Working with other SPARTANs was not my strong suit.

"You are to meet them in the morning, in the armoury. 0900." said Lasky, confirming what I had hoped might have not been true.

I simply sighed as Lasky left.

Standing in the armoury waiting for the new SPARTANS. The new, late SPARTANS might I add, I'd gotten bored, so I had picked up my assault rifle, and begun practicing on the targets in the firing range. Not that I needed it, it was calming for me. Soon I had gotten absorbed in the targets popping up and falling down. I'd rip one target to shred after another, swapping targets with trained precision, snapping in clip after clip and soon I wasn't seeing targets. I was seeing Covenant, Prometheans, Violence everywhere. I was back on Requiem with Cortana, fighting through the jungles after discovering promethean vision. As I snapped my rifle over to the next target I was on the purple, rocky mountains, where the covenant first appeared on Requiem. I gave a grunt as I leased off a burst from the MA5B Assault Rifle in my hands. Head on a swivel I turned my body around and shouldered the gun, hearing a noise.

I slowly took tension off of the trigger of the gun as I stared into the visor of a small SPARTAN. She was slightly cowered down hands up defensively as I stood there rifle still pointed at her forehead. I looked up above the bridge of my gun and found a magnum's barrel to greet me. A white and red SPARTAN of average height stood at the trigger, a bigger and more muscle bound one right behind him, aiming a SAW at me as well. My breathing calmed and my heart began to slow itself. I lowered my assault rifle and stood tall looking dead into the barrel of the high caliber pistol pointed at the bridge of my nose. The pale and crimson operator did not ease away from the trigger, keeping the gun trained on me.

I grabbed the gun from his hands spun it into my own palm and holstered it, leaving him with an empty hand pointed at me. he looked at his hand looked back at me, and began to laugh. As did the other two SPARTANs.

I found nothing amusing about the situation.

"And you are?" I asked through the golden shimmer of my visor, startling the group back into shape.

The magnum operator extended a blood red gloved hand towards me, "Sigma Squad at your service." he said.

I reluctantly took his hand and looked at the lot of them. Three SPARTANs, one of which looked as if she barely would meet the head level of normal humans, all in a squad with mismatched colors and armour, sporting all types of weapons and attitudes.I couldn't see how they'd made it through basic.

"Name's Ken, the girl you almost shot is Grace, and the guy with the big guns, is Luke." said the SPARTAN in front of me.

I looked at Grace who gave a shy wave, and then to Luke, who flicked me the bird. The temptation I had to teach him how SPARTAN II's handle issues was barely contained as I nodded at him. I noticed the Red Cross with a shattered bone covering it was painted onto Ken's shoulder and chestplate.

"Like the new insignia huh? Painted it myself. I'm the squad's medic, Grace is the Machines girl, warthogs, mongooses, falcons, pelicans. you name it, she can probably fix it. And Luke over there. Well, he's just stupid." said Ken getting a retort from Luke, "But he can come in handy, he's the heavy weapons and demolitions specialist of the squad, and as far as we've heard, you're the leader."

Now looking closer at each of their armours I noticed small giveaways to their favorite pastimes. Grace had oil smudges on her ice blue armour and a wrench and hammer insignia across the cobalt stripe running the length of both her arms and chest. Luke had what looked like soot and char on the sides and back of his armour. As well as a piece of C4 backed by two mounted turrets on his yellow trim, a high contrast to the dark brown of his primary coat.

I turned to face Ken, "Do you not have any A.I.s?" I asked with a slight confusion to my voice.

Ken responded, "Of course we do! All of us in fact." he stated with a proud look.

A small greenish blue figure appeared on the pedestal next to Ken.

"My name is Joyce." said the miniature woman, long dark green hair cascading down her shoulders, covered by a miniature set of armor to match. Not armor of a spartan, armor of a medieval knight, even a sword strapped to her waist, she disappeared being replaced with a small orange female.

"Name's Zulu, how's it going?" the small figure gave a smirk, her shoulder length hair bouncing along with her giggling. She wore no fashion of clothes, covered by lines of code in a similar fashion as Cortana.

I had a brief flashback of Cortana before the orange figure disappeared as well, a deep purple appearing on the pedestal, a man this time. His hair was shaved to military standard, though his face was soft, no more than 18 years of age had he been real. He gave a salute, standing at attention whilst facing me, I nodded at him, his projection going to parade rest.

"Johnson, at your service sir." the small man said, his voice not yet faltered by age, but quite accurately depicted the hardened voice of a soldier. I liked this A.I. the most so far.

I once again gave a small nod, his projection now disappearing, "Now who's A.I. is who's?" I asked, simply to make sure of their whereabouts.

Ken claimed Joyce, Luke with Zulu, and finally Grace with Johnson. I nodded a third time before nodding and motioning them to follow me.

We were heading to the briefing room.


End file.
